Xchange - Discussion Notes

Romans 1:18-2:1
Pointing the Finger

The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and injustice of those who, by their injustice, suppress the truth. For what can be know about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, (that is, his eternal power and divinity) has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For though they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds became darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling birds or animals or reptiles.

Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshipped and served creatures rather than the creator – who is blessed for ever! Amen!

For this reason, God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also, men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men, committing shameless acts with men, and receiving in their own bodies the due penalty for their error.

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and things that should not be done. They were filled with every kind of injustice, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. They know God’s decrees that those who do such things deserve to die – yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practise them.

Therefore, you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgement upon another you condemn yourself, because you – the judge – are doing the very same things.

Study notes

“Tell me the good old story…
About who’s not going to glory”

In the first instance, this passage is addressed primarily to a community, not a group of individuals. Both Paul and Jesus warn us against passing judgement upon others – because the communities they addressed were prone to do just this. Communities that feel insecure or threatened in some way will very often tighten their boundaries, and increase their disdain for the world beyond their community. We see this in individuals, in families as and in nations. A communal heterophobia – a fear of those who are not like you or do not belong to your community – can easily sink invisible but strong roots, deep into the communal psyche. Those addressed by Jesus and Paul both had good reason to feel threatened, so this ‘communal heterophobia’ could easily have taken hold of the worshipping community – manifesting itself in pointing the finger at others.

So Paul employs here a rhetorical device once used by the prophet Amos. In 8th century BC Israel, the nation, was threatened from beyond – and those beyond its borders were hated by the Jews. And so Amos opens his prophecy with an approval-winning denunciation of Israel’s neighbours. However, at the end of his rant against the injustice of ‘abroad’, he turns his guns upon Israel – saying that they had been worse than anyone and should have known better than anyone because God had revealed himself to them. This is precisely what Paul does in these verses. He produces a checklist of human wickedness that nasty non-Christians are guilty of, a list that many a sound Christian might rather enjoy hearing – and at the end of the list – Paul turns his guns upon those who would have enjoyed hearing about the guilt of others.

From this insight, we might hear more fully the logic of what Paul is saying. The word generally translated as ‘wickedness’ is, in reality much more specific. It is the counter-word to the theme of Romans. The word is ‘in-justice’ / ‘un-righteousness’.

Remembering that these words come immediately after statements about the justice / righteousness of God himself, and those who claim to be his people, a deliberate contrast is being set up. This is all a part of accounting for why the world does not acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour – that is, Jesus as the divinely appointed King who has authority over all other kings, to bring justice to the world. (See last week’s notes) Why is the world in a mess and why is God not fixing it, if he is so righteous?

Paul follows the belief that there is sufficient evidence in the created order to point towards a divine goodness from beyond the immediate – and displacing worship of a righteous God with idol-worship leads to some very specific sins. So Paul takes up the theme of homosexuality – possibly because it was seen by many as a social norm and many others as a social evil. Nevertheless, addressing human sexuality is at once deeply personal, deeply political – and easily labelled. This last point is of crucial importance for someone dealing in godly rhetoric.

Paul describes a world in which homosexuality has become ‘natural’ (and therefore no individuals are singled out for criticism), claiming that the presence of such practices in the natural world are as a result of human sin. (This is not to say that these practices render individuals ‘sinful’ because you do not choose your sexuality!) One sometimes has the impression that if Paul had any idea that homosexuality would become such a contentious issue that he might have just picked another ‘sin’ to make the same point! The important point for Paul is the question of who is responsible for these practices entering into the world? And the answer is simply: those who condemn these practices! Those who have perpetuated and maintained injustice in the wider world are the very people who are responsible for whatever social problems they might enjoy complaining about.

Homo-sexuality is often condemned because it is thought to imply a hetero-phobia (fear of the other). Homos is the Greek word for the ‘same’; Heteros is the opposite – the word for ‘other’. But here, Paul points out that those who point the finger of judgement at homosexuals thereby embody the very ‘hetero-phobia’ they condemn in those alleged ‘hetero-phobes’. In other words – finger pointers are spiritually homosexual!

Many of those therefore, who first heard Paul’s letter – would have been confronted with the thought that the world is un-just because of me.

Discussion Questions

1. How easy is it, when you fall out with people, to surround yourself with people who simply agree with you or who you know will take your side? Can you think of times when you have done this because it is easier than facing up to the painful experience of confronting what you know to be the truth? (If you would rather talk about your enemy’s hetero-phobia than your own, what does that tell you?!) How might this be a form of ‘suppressing the truth by injustice’ (v18)?
2. Are there ways of ‘judging others’ that enable you to convince yourself and/or others that you are not, in fact, doing this?
3. Is it possible to love the sinner but hate the sin?

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